CHAPTER FIFTH.

Why East Camp was chosen as a place of refuge-How Mr. Provcost passed his time-Various honorable appointments offered to him-His reasons given for declining them-Calls to several parishes-Endurance of poverty and privation— Selling furniture and other expedients-Anecdote of the Revolution-Almost a fighting parson-End of the war-The British troops leave New York-Rejoicings upon the return of the American forces-Gleams of hope for Mr. Provoost.

N selecting East Camp as a quiet restingplace until the close of the war, Mr. Provoost was influenced, in some degree, by its being in the neighborhood of the Livingston families. Walter and Rob

ert Cambridge Livingston had been fellow-students with him at the English university.

While the fierce and long-continued contest was going on, Mr. Provoost remained in perfect retirement, devoting his time to literary pursuits, for which he had a great taste. Had he been a private citizen, instead of a clergyman, he would have proved himself a valiant soldier in the cause of independence.

His political sentiments were well known,

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although he took no active part, and his name was placed at the head of a list of those who were to be delegates to the Provincial Congress; but he very properly declined to serve.

When the convention which formed the first constitution of the State of New York, met at Kingston in 1777, Mr. Provoost was elected chaplain. He refused to accept the appointment, assigning the following reasons for so doing: "In the beginning of the present war, when each province was endeavoring to unite the more effectually to oppose the tyranny of the British court, I remarked with great concern, that all the Church clergy in these northern States, who received salaries from the society, or emoluments from England, were unanimous in opposing the salutary measures of a vast majority of their countrymen; so great a harmony among the people in their particular circumstances pretty clearly convinced me that some, at least, were biassed by interested motives. As I entertained political opinions diametrically opposite to those of my brethren, I was apprehensive that a profession of these opinions might be imputed to mercenary views, and an ungenerous desire of rising on their ruin. To obviate any suspicions of this kind, I formed a resolution never to accept

of any preferment during the present contest; although as a private person I have been, and shall always be, ready to encounter any danger that may be incurred in the defence of our invaluable rights and liberties."

The same motives which led him to decline the appointments before mentioned, made him refuse a call to the rectorship of St. Michael's Church, Charleston, South Carolina, which was tendered him in 1777, and another, in 1782, to take charge of King's Chapel, Boston.

Had Mr. Provoost been a man of fortune, it would have required no great sacrifice on his part to remain firm to his principles, as expressed in the communication given before; but it will be seen from the letter which follows, that this was far from being the case:

"I have no salary or income of any kind, the estate which formerly supported me having been in the hands of the enemy ever since they took possession of the city of New York. The place on which I live is so far from maintaining my family, that I am now in debt for the greatest part of the wheat they have consumed since the beginning of the war. Besides selling part of my furniture, etc., and running in debt for various necessaries, I have, from time to time, borrowed money of my friends to consid

ALMOST A FIGHTING PARSON.

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erable amount. My mother and family are refugees from the city, and nearly in the same situation with myself; and I am prevented by the constitution of the State, and canons of the Church, from entering into any secular employment."

The son-in-law of Bishop Provoost, the late Hon. Cadwallader D. Colden, has recorded the following interesting anecdote, which belongs to this period of his life:

"When the British fleet ascended the Hudson River, and burnt Esopus, after they had set fire to Judge Livingston's house, which was but a little way below Mr. Provoost's farm, a detachment of soldiers from the fleet was observed approaching the shore not far from Mr. Provoost's dwelling. He and a number of his neighbors armed themselves, with a hope that they might defend their property. The soldiers were seen to land and leave their boat in charge of a guard of two or three men. It was immediately proposed by the armed citizens to surprise the guard and destroy the boat, which would insure, with the force that could soon be raised in the country, the capture of the whole detachment. With this design, Mr. Provoost and his party crept along the river, concealed by the rocks and bushes till they got so near

the boat as to be on the point of executing their design, when, to their great disappointment, the soldiers who had left the shore met with something which hastened their return, and the reverend gentleman and his associates were glad to keep themselves hid, not without fears that they would be discovered. If this had happened, they certainly would have been the captured instead of the captors; and very probably would not have been very easily exchanged, as the British officers might have chosen to exhibit in England a rebel fightingparson as a curiosity."*

Mr. Provoost remained upon his farm in Dutchess county for fourteen years, from 1770 to 1784. His patient endurance of poverty and privation gained for him the reputation, with the American party, of a patriot clergyman, and almost a martyr.

At last the war of Independence was brought to a close, and, in 1783, a treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United States was signed. On the 25th of November, the English troops left the city of New York. It was a clear and brilliant morning, cold and frosty, when the American soldiers, commanded by